


The Past and Pending

by Cerusee



Series: Batfam Week 2018 [5]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: DC doesn’t take that seriously but I do, Dick and Jason are Done, Gen, Nostalgia, Stargazing, Stephanie Brown had a baby, a surprising amount of melancholy and regret, batkid shenanigans, bruce and alfred are co-conspirators in overpacking, night hiking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15568488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerusee/pseuds/Cerusee
Summary: Scenes from a family of people who are over-trained, under-prepared and who collectively possess zero chill: the night hike edition.





	The Past and Pending

**Author's Note:**

> For Batfam Week 2018. Prompt: “Family Night”

Dick cracked an eyelid as Jason settled down next to him on the floor, leaning back against the servery wall. When the hell had Jason gotten so tall? The first time Dick had met him, he’d been a shrimpy little thing who barely came up to Dick’s ribcage. Now his legs were longer than Dick’s. He wasn’t jealous—Dick was first and foremost a gymnast and a trapeze artist; bigger wasn’t necessarily better—but it was still jarring, sometimes, how different Jason was, physically.

“They’re still at it,” Jason reported, thunking his head back against the wall.

“They’re overpacking?”

“They’re overpacking,” Jason said. “You’d think we were striking out for Nanda Parbat again, and not just the Manor grounds.”

Dick snorted.

“I vote we go in and unpack and repack everything when they leave the bags alone. This bullshit should not be left to stand.”

“We can get Cass in as a decoy,” Dick said. “Also, have you ever…?” _Been there_ , he didn’t say.

Jason _hmm_ ed, and didn’t answer.

***

“Okay,” Steph said, amusement bubbling up through her chest, as she looked at Damian, clad head to foot in black, complete with a balaclava. “Good instinct for a ninja, but this is a night hike, not a mission, so you should change into something...you know, more colorful.”

Damian’s mouth twisted—bless the child for choosing a ski mask where she could see his mouth—and he glanced away. “I thought this was a training exercise.”

“What, like a stealth thing?”

“Obviously.”

Steph considered it. “I mean, can see why you’d think that, but no. It’s, uh, stargazing, and...I don’t know, environmental awareness. Or something.”

“You don’t know,” Damian said slowly. “You’ve never done this either.”

“Well,” Steph said. “Strictly speaking, no.” There was a summer when she was _supposed_ to go to camp, a fancy-schmancey expensive place, but somehow, _gosh_ , the money hadn’t materialized after all. 

Crime, in Steph’s experience, did not pay consistently.

Steph wished she could have gone back in time and thrown brochures for cheaper summer camps at her folks’ heads...but if Steph was going to go back and change things, that probably wouldn’t even make the top thirty-five.

“Your brothers seem pretty psyched about this,” she said. “I mean, not Tim, god help him, but Jason and Dick. They’ve been talking and planning and everything.”

“That’s true,” Damian said, brightening, and pulling the mask off his head. Steph wasn’t sure if that was because Dick was for this, or because Tim wasn’t. She didn’t ask.

“C’mon,” she said. “Chop, chop. Lighter colors, or I’m deputized to put reflective tape anywhere I want. I’m thinking a silhouette thing, and you can cosplay XKCD.”

“I don’t know what that is!” Damian shouted, retreating behind his bathroom door.

Steph grinned. _Almost ready_ , she texted Dick.

***

“Just one second,” Tim said, lifting a finger over his shoulder, and furiously texting with just the thumb of the hand holding his phone.

“No phone,” Cass told him.

Tim rolled his eyes. “Good luck enforcing that with Bruce or Jason,” he muttered.

“No need,” Cass said pleasantly. “Just you.”

Tim’s thumbs stopped, mid-text. “What?”

“Just you,” she repeated, and plucked the phone out of Tim’s hands and tossed it onto the bed. While he was standing there, empty-handed, jaw dropped in shock, she twisted and seized him, pulling him into a fireman’s carry. “Time to go.”

“Wait!” Tim yelped. “It’s only at 3 percent charge, Cass, c’mon, at least let me put it on the _charger_ …”

***

“So,” Duke said, awkwardly. “Is this, like, a regular thing? I don’t have hiking boots. I am I supposed to get hiking boots? Should I get gear? Do I need a flashlight, or can I just borrow one?”

Titus yawned mightily.

“Thanks,” Duke said, leaning back against the couch in the library and once again questioning all the decisions that had led him to this particular place and point in time. “You’ve been a pal.”

***

“We don’t need any fucking coal, Bruce” Jason said pleasantly, zipping up one of the bags that he and Dick had repacked. Half of its previous contents were heaped in the kitchen corner, all attempts at stealth abandoned when the Cass gambit had failed. “If we want to have a fire, there’s already stuff on the grounds.”

“It could rain,” Bruce said, darkly, fingering a poncho that Dick had pulled out of a bag.

“It’s not going to rain,” Dick said, wearily. “We checked the weather. It’s going to be 70 degrees fahrenheit for the next few hours, low of 63 tonight, 30 percent humidity. There’s not a cloud in the sky. We’re probably not even going to _want_ the campfire, since one of the goals here is to see the stars, right?”

Jason pulled out a small cardboard box from another bag. He snorted. “Seriously, B? We don’t need tampons for this.”

“Actually, maybe leave those, Jay,” Dick said, looking up from the bag that he was repacking. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from dating women, it’s that it’s always a good idea to have a tampon on hand.”

“Babs isn’t here, and Steph and Cass don’t need them right now,” Jason said.

“How do you know that?”

“No, he’s right,” Bruce said.

“... _why_ do you know that? Either of you?”

“They make me go out and buy those chemical heatpads for them when they’re on their periods,” Jason said. “And they’re regular as fucking _clockwork_. I have it on my phone, but I don’t really need to.”

Bruce merely grunted. “These aren’t for the girls. They’re in case of bullet wounds.”

“I’m not even bringing guns with me, and the only way someone is going to get shot tonight is if someone is poaching squirrels on your trails,” Jason said, rolling his eyes.

Bruce looked petulant.

“Fine!” Jason said, throw up his hands. “We’ll take the tampons on our _three hour night hike_ where we’re _not even leaving the grounds_.”

“Thank you,” Bruce said.

Dick sighed heavily.

***

“Oh my god, don’t you have hiking boots?” Steph said to Duke. “Didn’t someone tell you to get hiking boots?”

Duke stared at her. “No.”

Cass patted his shoulder, darting past. “Sorry. Should have said.”

“I thought she was the good one,” Duke said, wearily.

“Shows what you know,” Steph said.

“What size do you wear?” Dick asked, eying Duke’s feet. “I have a spare pair you can borrow, as long as they’re not too small. C’mon. If they’re too big, we can load you up on socks.” Duke followed Dick out of the foyer.

“I don’t have hiking boots either,” Tim said.

“Yes you do,” Steph told him, heartlessly slinging a box at him. “I know you’re beyond hope, so I bought you a pair.”

“ _I_ bought you a pair,” Bruce interjected.

“I bought you a pair using Bruce’s money,” Steph said. “He was technically there, but it was mostly me.”

“Why are we doing this, anyway?” Tim whined, as he knelt on the floor of the foyer to change his shoes.

“Because Jason and Dick want to recreate their childhoods,” Steph said.

“I thought you wanted to do this,” Jason said, sounding hurt, coming into the room with a backpack slung over one shoulder.

“I do!” Steph said. “I bought Tim hiking boots for this! I bought _me_ hiking boots for this! I’m a starving college student; you think I put down my money for an activity I’m not excited for?”

“You bought them with Bruce’s credit card,” Jason said dryly. “I was there, remember? And we’re doing this because it’s my turn to pick an activity for family night, and Babs is out of town, so it’s the perfect time.”

“Yeah, but why do we have to do it at _all?_ ” Tim complained. “There’s mosquitos out there.”

“Not _that_ many,” Bruce said.

“Doesn’t matter. If there’s a mosquito out there, it’ll find me. I’m like a lantern to them. A blood lantern.”

“Close your eyes, Timmy,” Jason said, digging in the backpack with one hand.

“What?”

“Close your eyes, trust me, you don’t want them open for this.” As Tim warily did so, Jason sprayed him in the face with a can of insect repellent.

Tim yelped. “What the hell?!” Jason continued to spray the exposed parts of Tim’s body. Some of it must have gotten into his mouth, because he made a utterly disgusted sound and stuck his tongue out like he was trying to force it out of his body entirely. “That’s _vile_.”

“Yeah, it’s supposed to be vile. It’s insect _repellent_ , not insect _attractent_.

“That’s not a word.”

“You know what else is repellent?” Jason said. “Linguistic pedantry. The spoken language is the language, Timbo. I spoke it, and that makes it a word.”

“You can’t just make up words!”

“Just did,” Jason said. “And if I keep using it, it becomes a real word. Just you watch, I’ll have it in Merriam-Webster’s in fifteen years.”

“ _Enough_ ,” Bruce said, raising a hand. “Jason, stop trying to bait your siblings into arguments about prescriptivism.”

“Are you sure that’s a word?” Tim said, dubiously.

“Exhibit A,” Jason told Bruce. “He needs it.”

“ _I_ don’t, and I’ve heard the whole thing before,” Bruce said, sounding more amused than anything else. “Save it for sometime that isn’t family night.”

Jason made a face at him, but he let it lie.

***

“Everybody got flashlights?” Dick called out to the assembly.

“No,” Duke and Damian said simultaneously, as Cass nodded, and Steph clicked hers on and off. Tim held up a phone.

“Cass, you were supposed to take that thing away from him,” Steph said.

“Did,” Cass said, bewildered.

“I borrowed Steph’s,” Tim said. Steph’s hand flew to her back pocket.

“Not _again_ ,” she groaned, snatching the phone out of Tim’s hand. “Bruce, if you don’t make your kids stop pickpocketing my phone, I’m going to Commissioner Gordon. And Tim, we’re not dating anymore, so kindly keep your hands away from my butt.”

“Cass has her hand in your back pocket _right now_.”

“Cass is an angel and she can grab my butt any time she wants. You, however, no longer have ass-squeezing privileges. Those were revoked when we broke up.”

“We could ditch them all,” Jason told Dick, seriously. “Just leave them all behind and do this hike by ourselves.”

“Not that I wouldn’t appreciate the quality time with you, Jay, but I think that would contravene the principles behind family night,” Dick said, slapping him on the shoulder. “All right, kids—“

Bruce coughed discreetly.

“Lighten _up_ , Bruce,” Jason said.

“—and esteemed seniors—“

“C’mon folks, let’s go already,” Jason said, waving them to follow him. “Starlight’s burning.” He turned and set off in the direction of the trail connector nearest the Manor’s front entrance. Dick kept pace with Jason, the younger cohort forming a loose gaggle behind them, and Bruce and Alfred brought up the rear.

“Make sure to use your flashlights and keep them on the ground ahead of you,” Dick called back. “Jason and I checked out the trails earlier and they’re not as well maintained as they could be. Watch out for tree roots and big rocks.”

“And mud!” Jason yelled.

“They don’t get used very often,” Bruce said wistfully. “Not since…” he trailed off.

Not since Dick had moved away from home, and Jason had—

Both of them had developed a penchant for hiking at their respective stints at summer camp. Dick had been enthused about the idea of camp from the get-go; Jason had been more reluctant, the first year, but he’d had a good enough time to come home glowing, and he was the one approaching Bruce with the pamphlet the next year. (Bruce had taken that kind of thing for granted, with Dick—Dick had been such a _happy_ child. He’d had an abundance of joy in his life, enough to weather his tragedy without losing his light, fluttering around the Manor, around Batman). 

It had made Bruce’s heart glow to see how Jason had responded to the experience; to know that he himself had been able to give this piece of the world to a Gotham orphan, a street kid who’d never known anything but concrete and tenements, smoggy air and filthy alleyways, until that fateful day when his roving eye fell on the unattended Batmobile. Dick had spent his early childhood seeing the world from the back of a circus caravan, traveling all over the country, performing with his parents at night, exploring new towns by day. But fresh air and trees and lakes and wooden cabins and _hiking_ had been new experiences for Jason.

Both had been delighted to realize that their new home and its abundant grounds offered several trails all over the property. They’d both made regular use of them during free summer days and on weekends, Bruce and Alfred occasionally joining them when time permitted and the weather was fine. Never at night, granted. Nights were reserved for other activities.

After Jason had—been _gone_ , Bruce had fallen out of the habit of ever walking the trails himself. The happy memories had become too painful; the trails had become just another place that Jason wasn’t, and never would be again. Tim wasn’t the outdoors type, even if things had been like that between them, earlier on, and Cassandra was so exceedingly fond of _indoors_ places, warm ones with beds and abundant food, that it never occurred to Bruce to encourage her to explore the outdoors parts of Wayne Manor.

To be honest, Bruce hadn’t been entirely comfortable with the prospect of this hike, when Jason had floated it, pointing out that Babs’s trip to London meant they could do something more physical in nature for family night without excluding her. He hadn’t been sure how those memories would feel now, with Jason back again. And the last time he and Jason had done any kind of hiking at all had been on the journey that ultimately led to Ethiopia, to Amba Mariam, to the charred and smoking remains of a warehouse.

That was a hike Bruce had come back from alone.

But the things that haunted Bruce weren’t all the same things that haunted Jason, and Dick had been so vocally enthusiastic about the idea that Bruce kept his reservations to himself. And at least this was...different. There were nine of them this time, for a start. 

_Hey, just like the Fellowship, B_ , said a voice in his head that sounded a little like Jason’s had, back then. 

Part of him wanted to be up front with Jason and Dick, instead of hanging in the back, but...maybe this was better. At least for today. So he stayed where he was, in companionable silence with Alfred, and simply followed the chattering voices of the kids.

***

“Leatherworking,” Jason said. “That was my best craft. I made Bruce a belt.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I put little birds on it.”

“Let me guess, robins?” Dick asked, with open amusement.

“Hawks, believe it or not. A woman from a nearby bird sanctuary had come by the first week of camp to do a unit on handling raptors, and I was totally in love with them.”

“Hey,” Dick said, remembering something. “I think Bruce still _has_ that belt. I know I’ve seen him wear it.”

“What, really?” Jason said.

“Heck, I borrowed it once,” Dick said. “I had no idea you made it. It looked professional.”

“You better have given it back, Dickiebird,” Jason said, suddenly deadly serious.

“I did, I did,” Dick assured him. Jason relaxed. “You know, pottery was my best craft at camp,” Dick said. “Not that you would have known it, my first year. I made Bruce an _ashtray_.”

Jason snorted. “That’s literally the most useless thing you could have given him,” he said. “No one has smoked in that house in three generations.”

Dick threw up his arms, theatrically. “What can I say? Someone told me it was just what you do. And I was ten, okay, I wasn’t very good back then.” He paused. “Are you claiming _you_ never…?”

Jason put up a hand. “Swear to god. I never smoked in the Manor.” After a beat, he added, “I smoked _on_ the Manor, before I managed to kick it. I’d climb out on the roof so Alfie wouldn’t smell it in my room. Even back then I knew he was someone I didn’t want to piss off.”

Dick snorted. “Bet he knew.”

“Alfred’s not actually omniscient, Dick,” Jason said. “He just wants you to think that. In fact, I’ll bet you twenty bucks he didn’t know.”

“You’re on,” Dick said, with a grin. “Easiest twenty bucks I’m ever gonna make.”

***

“Didn’t Dick say to keep that flashlight pointed at the ground?” Duke said, as Damian waved his flashlight around the trees, evidently searching for something.

“I am looking for wildlife,” Damian said.

“Squirrels aren’t nocturnal, dude,” Duke said. “At least I don’t think they are. You always see them around during the day, anyway, and they gotta sleep sometime.”

“I am not looking for squirrels,” Damian said dismissively. “I was hoping for a glimpse of an owl. There must be some on the property—I’ve heard them hooting at night.”

“Hoping to add to your menagerie?”

“Five animals is hardly a menagerie, Thomas,” Damian said. “And no. Even if Father wouldn’t likely object, owls are predators, and I could hardly keep one safely and comfortably inside the house, and properly meet its needs. But I would like to meet one, at least,” he concluded, wistfully.

“I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” Duke said. And he did, which was the only reason he saw the flicker of movement in the trees, right before Cassandra Cain, who also wasn’t pointing her flashlight at the ground, or anywhere else, because it was switched off, dropped down onto his back, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“Hi,” Cass said brightly to the both of them. “Want to...play a game?”

“Absolutely not,” Duke said immediately, attempting to peel her off of him. “I can’t stress enough how much I do _not_ want to play anything _you_ would consider a game.”

“You?” Cass said to Damian.

Damian looked intrigued. “What did you have in mind?”

***

Tim made a horrified noise in his throat as he stepped carefully from dry spot to dry spot along a muddy patch of trail.

“It’s just dirt,” Steph said, sighing. Tim had fallen back a good thirty feet, thanks to his stubborn unwillingness to get his boots wet.

“It’s _mud_.”

“Mud is just wet dirt. It’ll dry, Tim. That’s why the hiking boots.”

“Say, Steph?” Tim said, edging slowly around a particularly large patch of mud. “Where did Cassie go?”

“She got tired of waiting for you and went on ahead. I’m gonna catch up with her.” But Steph didn’t get more than fifty feet from where she’d left Mr. Precious before she felt something snag her ankle, and she was swept off her feet in a dizzying blur. A second later, Steph found herself dangling from a tall tree branch, suspended by the rope snare she’d apparently tripped _That’s got to be at least fifteen feet_ she thought, squinting at the muddy ground below.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” she said, conversationally. She looked up, and saw Cass in the leaves above her, wrinkling her nose at Steph, and then disappearing. She was way too good at that. How did a girl who’d been trained in the city get so good at climbing trees?

Steph’s lunatic best friend dropped down to dangle beside her, grinning. “Squirrel trap!”

“How the fuck,” Steph said. “How the fuck would this trap a squirrel? Let me down, Cass.” She curled upwards, trying to get a hand on the line that had snared her, so she could climb up it. Thank god she did regular core work.

Cass just giggled, and gave Steph a gentle push, so that she was swinging back and forth.

“I’ll holler,” Steph warned her. “Tim’s back there somewhere, Cass.”

There was a sudden shudder above her, and the branch that she was dangling from bounced. The pressure of the rope holding her ankle vanished, and then she was falling, _oh shit oh shit_ there wasn’t enough time for her to fall right, she was gonna break something important, like a clavicle or a tibia or a spine—

“ _Oof_ ,” Jason said, as she landed solidly in his arms, in a classic bridal carry. “Though she be little, yet she weighs as much as the state of Delaware.”

“It’s all muscle,” she said, slightly in shock. Which was true. “Did you guys plan that?” She hadn’t even seen him down there. She craned her neck down. Jason looked like he was only a normal amount of muddy.

“No. Just good timing,” Jason said, setting her on her feet with a grunt. “That was probably Damian up there. He’s got some kind of Capture the Flag thing going on with Cass.”

“Oh shit,” Steph said, with dread. “I’m the flag, aren’t I?”

“‘Fraid so,” Jason said. “Which is why I came looking for you.”

“I wanna walk with you,” Steph said, fervently. “Take me away from all this, you tall and handsome stranger.” She took a step forward, and then she stopped, biting back a cry, sitting down abruptly in the mud. “Jason,” she said faintly.

“Stephie?”

“My ankle’s fucked up and I’m not walking anywhere and can you take me to the ER?”

“Crap.” Jason crouched down next to her, unlacing her boot and running his hands over her ankle. “Nothing’s broken, I think? Maybe just a sprain. I’ve got an ace bandage in here; we can wrap it up when we’re out of this mud. C’mon.” He slid off his backpack so that she could climb on his back, and then stood, backpack in one hand, Steph’s boot in the other. “Your little game got Steph hurt, you dipshits, so no more ninja shit!” he yelled up into the trees. The leaves rustled ominously, but Cass had disappeared, and there was no answer.

Steph doubted they would listen, assuming they were even still there, but the advantage of having literally attached herself to Jason was that they’d probably switch to Tim. (Stephanie had absolutely no qualms about throwing him under the bus, not if it meant not being the primary target of two of the most devious minds she had ever met.)

Jason shook his head, grumbling. “Man, I _told_ Bruce we didn’t need all that rope...”

***

“Switched up your gear there, huh, Jay?” Dick said, looking at the blonde sandwiched between Jason and his backpack, which said blonde was now wearing herself, as Jason rejoined him at the lead of the hike.

“Yeah, I saw this model in the window, and I just thought it was cute,” Jason deadpanned.

“Har-dee-har,” Steph said, knuckling Jason’s skull. “Cass and Damian are being little shits, and I sprained my ankle.”

“ _They_ sprained your ankle,” Jason said.

“Well, we’re almost back to the lawn, so you can sit down on a nice, comfy blanket in the middle of a big flat space where you can see them coming a mile away,” Dick said.

“This fuckin’ family,” Jason groused, leaning back, cracking his spine. Stephanie yelped, as she almost flipped over, and wrapped her free limbs around him like an octopus. “This was just supposed to be some clean, wholesome fun. Hiking and stargazing.”

“Don’t DO that, dude!” Stephanie said, breathlessly.

Dick snorted. “Like you’re not the one derailing Family Night half the time, Jaybird.”

“ _Bite me_ ,” Jason said. Dick maybe wasn’t the best judge of Jason, but he seemed genuinely upset. “For once, _I_ got to pick the thing, and they _ruined_ it.”

“Nothing’s ruined, Jay,” Dick said, mildly.

“You know, you’d get to pick more often if you ever actually _showed_ ,” Steph said. 

“No I wouldn’t,” Jason muttered. “‘Family Night’ is for you kids, not for us.”

“‘ _You kids_ ’,” Steph said, and bonked her forehead against the back of Jason’s skull with not inconsiderable force. She and Jason flinched in almost perfect unison. “You and Cass are the same age, you loser,” Steph said. “I’m only a year behind. You always lump yourself in with Dick and Babs, but Dick is like, seven years older than you. And Babs is—”

“Not here to defend herself against these base slanders,” Dick interjected. “And it’s eight, actually.”

“Women are allowed to get older, Dick,” Steph said, wrinkling her nose. “But I was going to say, a real adult.”

“Fuck you both, I’m an adult,” Jason said, petulantly.

“You only act responsible when you feel like it,” Steph said, and Dick couldn’t help but make a vaguely affirmative noise.

“So does _Bruce!_ ” Jason said heatedly. And not, Dick noted, actually denying it. “Half the time he’s like a goddamn oversized toddler who wouldn’t eat dinner or go to bed if Alfred didn’t make him!”

“You’re not helping yourself,” Steph said. “Bruce deals with his unresolved psychological issues by dressing up like a giant bat and punching criminals.”

“So do _you_ , Stephie.”

“And have I claimed to be an adult? No. No, I have not.”

“She’s got you there, Jay,” Dick said.

Jason’s pace slowed, and he said, in a surprising sober tone, “It’s not an age thing, Steph.” Something about his voice made Dick drop back a few steps so he could watch Jason more closely without being obvious about it. “It’s more… _experience_.”

“Yeah, I know you’ve done the world-hopping thing, Jason,” Steph said, hugging an arm around his chest, “but we’ve all traveled plenty—”

“Not like that,” Jason said, cutting her short. Steph’s arm drifted loose. “ _None_ of you know Bruce the way I did.” He blinked, furiously. “Not the way _we_ did.”

The word hung in the air without needing to be spoken.

_Before_.

It was true, Dick thought, studying the side of Jason’s face, watching it contort, as Jason struggled to keep himself calm. Bruce had gotten a lot better in the years since Jason’s loss, but he wasn’t the same man who’d raised Dick, who’d raised Jason, and Dick didn’t think he ever would be again. 

(And it was no wonder Jason wore a mask over a mask; barefaced, Jason couldn’t keep an emotion to himself if his life depended on it. _How do you still have no armor?_ Dick thought; Jason’s emotions could not present themselves any more clearly than if they took to leaving a card at the front of the house.) 

Bruce loved them all. There was no question whatsoever in Dick’s mind about that. But there was also no question that Bruce was a different kind of father and mentor to Tim and Cass and Damian than he’d been to Dick, a different father than Dick thought he’d been to Jason.

Dick sometimes wondered if Jason ever blamed himself for being the catalyst that changed things for the worse. Dick would never say it, never, but—there was a part of him that wished Bruce had never met Jason, just so that Bruce would never have _lost_ Jason. So that Bruce would still be the man Dick remembered. 

It was selfish, and it was ugly. He wasn’t proud of feeling that way. But it was true.

“Yeah?” Steph said, softly. “What _was_ he like?”

“Happier,” Jason said, his voice rough and raw. “Better off.” 

Apparently, Dick wasn’t the only one to wonder in that direction.

“Less of a hardass,” Jason continued. “Slightly less of a _complete and utter control freak_.”

“He was a lot more emotionally available,” Dick put in, and it was easy to keep his own voice steady, after all these years of practice. “For what it’s worth, Steph, if you’d known him before, I think you two in particular would have,” _hit it off like gangbusters_ , “uh...had a smoother road. It’s just—I think that you reminded him too much of Jay.”

Jason closed his eyes for a moment, but said nothing more, and he kept walking, Stephanie’s legs tucked securely under his arms.

Stephanie turned her head and laid it on Jason’s back. She looked wistful. “Guess we’ll never know.”

***

Jason, Dick, and Steph were already laying out blankets on the lawn by the time the last of the pack trickled out of the trees—well, Jason and Dick were; Steph was lying comfortably on a blanket, thank you, with her ankle wrapped and propped carefully on a folded blanket. She had one arm under her head, and had already commenced with the stargazing, periodically pointing at things and asking Dick and Jason to identify various stars, which would have worked better if she’d had any success in conveying to either of them what she was pointing at besides “over there”.

Duke and Alfred came out as a pair, chatting amiably. The others, not so much.

Bruce was carrying a wriggling Damian under one arm, while an extremely muddy Tim followed, glaring daggers at Damian, and Cass trailed after them. From the sound of it, Bruce and Damian were arguing.

“Just one night,” Jason sighed as they approached.

“Hypocrite,” Steph accused, peacefully.

Cass walked over to them, and a chagrined look crossed her face when she saw Steph. She flopped down on the blanket next to her. “Me?” she said quietly, indicating Steph’s wrapped ankle.

“We think it’s just a sprain,” Steph said. “But yeah. Thanks for that.”

“Sorry,” Cass said contritely. “Supposed to be a game.”

Steph shrugged, although she was still annoyed about it. “It’s not as bad as the time you broke my jaw. Probably.”

Cass pouted. “Just a...micro-fracture.”

“Hah!” Steph said, sitting up and pointing at her. “You finally admit you _did_ break my jaw!”

“Healed fine,” Cass protested.

Stephanie punched her in the arm, not too hard, but not quite a love tap, either. Cass rubbed her arm, but didn’t protest. 

“Sorry,” she said, making doe eyes at Steph. “Forgive me?” 

“I shouldn’t,” Steph grumbled, lying back down again. “But I do.”

Cass laid down beside Steph, and cuddled up against her.

Bruce and Damian’s argument culminated in Damian throwing his hands up, and then turning around and stomping off towards Dick, leaving behind a visibly frustrated Bruce.

“How did _that_ go?” Steph asked in a low voice.

“Boys ended up...uh, fighting—wet dirt—“

“Mud wrestling?” Steph said, extremely amused by the image.

“Yeah.”

“Shouldn’t Bruce be yelling at you, too?”

“Might,” Cass said, sounding guilty. “If he sees your ankle.”

Stephanie hummed a non-response. Cass deserved it, if he did.

But Steph was thinking about Bruce, and what Dick and Jason had said about him, how he used to be more easy-going. 

She could sort of understand it, she thought.

Steph hadn’t kept... _her_. 

She’d had chosen to give up her up. Her daughter. Her _baby._

_Someone is loving her_ , she told herself, for the millionth time. _It was the right thing to do._

But if she hadn’t, _god_ , if her daughter was still hers—

_What if you were still my baby, and I let you play on the lawn_ , Steph thought. _And it was too close to the street?_

_What if I let Dad’s friends near you; what if they did to you what they almost did to me?_

_What if I let_ you _do the things I do?_

“It’ll be fine, Cass,” Steph said, digging her head back against the blanket and looking up at the stars. At the Big Dipper. Even she knew that one. “It’s just my ankle.” As long as they both stayed prone, Cass wouldn’t pick up on anything. Her secret superpower was body language, not telepathy.

Someone who was actually _ready_ to raise a child had put their arms around Steph’s baby the second Steph had lifted hers. That was what Steph told herself, every time she thought about her. It had to be someone good, it just _had_ to be. Someone loving and kind, someone who actually knew how to be a good mom or dad—god knows, _Steph_ didn’t know how to do that. Only what _not_ to do. Like abuse drugs and commit crimes and leave your daughter alone with a pedophile.

But if she hadn’t given her up, if she’d kept her and raised her herself, and something happened, if her baby had gotten hurt, or worse—Steph knew she’d never be able to forgive herself. Never.

Never get over it. Never stop being scared it could happen again.

Steph wondered what it had been like for Bruce, to see his lost son in her, and then to have it happen again. _You reminded him too much of Jason._ She’d felt the hitch in Jason’s breath, in his walk, when Dick said that.

(Surely, Leslie must have been thinking about it, when she took Steph out of Gotham, blatantly, deliberately lying about the fact that the moment Steph had crashed on the table hadn’t been the end of Stephanie after all. 

It suddenly seemed an unbearably cruel thing for Leslie to have done. She must have been so terribly angry with him about Jason, to do that to him.) 

For some reason, Steph’s eyes were burning.

_It’s just the starlight._

***

Dick and Jason plopped down on the blanket on either side of Bruce, who was busy stargazing. With his eyes closed. “Hey Alfred,” Dick said, “Can you settle a bet for us?”

“I don’t know if I can, Master Richard, but I will certainly endeavor to do so if I am able,” Alfred said, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

“Jason thinks you didn’t know about him sneaking cigarettes on the roof of the Manor, when he was a kid.”

“My heavens!” Alfred said, clearly startled. “I assure you, I was _not_ aware of that.” He leveled a gimlet eye at Jason, who looked unrepentant.

“Told you,” Jason said to Dick. “Alfred doesn’t know everything. He just pretends to. That way people don’t even bother trying to hide shit from him, because they think it’s a lost cause. I twigged to it _years_ ago.”

Alfred huffed, but didn’t dignify Jason’s accusation with an response.

“I knew,” Bruce interjected, eyes still closed.

“ _What?_ ” Jason said. “Are you serious?”

Bruce sat up slowly, stretching his arms over his head. “I knew you were still smoking, and that you went up to the roof to do it.”

“You never said anything!” Jason said, gaping. “Why wouldn’t you say anything?”

“You were trying to quit,” Bruce said, with a shrug. “Relapse is a normal part of overcoming an addiction. I did a few times myself, when I was quitting smoking.”

“ _What_ ,” Dick said loudly, at the same time Jason said, “ _Shut the front door_. You smoked? When? You never told me that!” They were loud enough that other heads poked up from blankets, curious about the reason for the fuss.

“Master Bruce’s teenage years were...trying,” Alfred said, pushing himself to his feet. He walked off in the direction of the others, muttering something Dick didn’t quite catch about somebody figuring it out eventually.

“You old hypocrite,” Jason said, darkly.

“I wasn't an athlete back then, Jason,” Bruce said. “I didn't even know I was going to be Batman, or how important it was going to be to be in peak physical shape. You wanted to be Robin, and that meant you couldn't have a compromised cardiovascular system.”

“I _know_ , that’s why I quit!” Jason said. “I wish you’d told me, though.” He flopped back against the blanket.

“I trusted you to quit, and you didn’t let me down,” Bruce said, reaching down resting a hand on Jason’s shoulder. He squeezed it, and Jason leaned into the touch. Dick nudged Bruce’s leg, and Bruce reached out with his other arm, and mussed Dick’s hair.

“Say,” Bruce said. “Why don’t we build a fire?”

**Author's Note:**

> Someday, I will write an ensemble fic where the entire ensemble gets its due. Today is not that day. My apologies to Duke, Alfred, Tim, and Damian.
> 
> Editing to add: @danithegrrrl on Tumblr drew some [ gorgeous fanart](http://danithegrrrl.tumblr.com/post/176850697238/i-got-some-nice-watercolors-for-my-bday-and-im) based on scenes from this story!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Tale of The Eternities](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736584) by [GraceEliz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz)




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